Sealaska Heritage honors four Southeast educators at Juneau conference

Four educators working in Juneau, Metlakatla and Sitka received awards from Sealaska Heritage Institute during Our Cultural Landscape, the institute's 2026 culturally responsive education conference, held Aug. 4-6 at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall in downtown Juneau.

Three received Distinguished Educator Awards: Kaalkéis Rene'e Drummond, a Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy teacher in Juneau; Chelsea Martinez, an Annette Island School District counselor in Metlakatla; and Bridgette Reynolds, a science, technology, engineering, arts and math teacher at Pacific High School in Sitka who also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau. The award, SHI said in its announcement, "recognizes those who intentionally weave cultural and Indigenous knowledge or worldviews throughout their lessons and in their classrooms."

Luke Fortier, director of education at Goldbelt Heritage Institute in Juneau, received the Community-Based Learning Teaching Award. SHI said the award honors teaching that carries cultural diversity and cross-cultural understanding into community engagement or public outreach.

The institute presented the awards at its ninth annual gathering, themed Learning from Our Ancestors, Shaping Our Future. Alaska News previously covered the conference's close, noting a keynote by Ernestine Saankaláxt Hayes and more than 50 breakout sessions that drew attendees from Alaska, the Lower 48, Canada and New Zealand.

The honors sit within a wider institutional push. SHI, founded in 1980 to perpetuate and enhance Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures, launched its Indigenizing Education for Alaska program to grow the number of Alaska Native teachers and administrators and improve educational opportunities for Alaska Native students, according to the program's description on the institute's education site.